“Introducing the Missourinet”

A lot of our company’s history is jammed into cardboard boxes and I stumbled upon a little piece this afternoon. This is a copy of an ad [larger image] that ran in Missouri Life Magazine, sometime in the early ’70’s.

Now Missourians from border to border know what their neighbors are doing.

They know what is going on in Jefferson City… in the major metropolitan areas… in the arts… in science… business.

They’re listening to their local radio station… an affiliate of the Missourinet.

The Missourinet is a statewide news network… very similar in operation to the national news networks. Some 40 radio stations carry its hourly newscasts. It has the state Capitol’s largest full-time news bureau. And each week its programs feature hundreds of on-the-scene reports from correspondents and newsmakers over the state.

Missouri + net? Get it? The official name of our company was “Missouri Network, Inc.” back then.

Portable wifi hotspot

Avis has begun to offer a product called Autonet as an add-on to some car rentals, giving customers with a mobile device such as Treo or a laptop access to the net (and Internet radio stations, one assumes).

The service, called “AVIS Connect” allows customers to rent the router and service for $10.95/day, less than most hotels charge for daily WiFi access in a room. AVIS currently offers the service to rental car customers in San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles, with plans for service to seven additional cities expected soon. [RAIN]

eBay to auction radio advertising

eBay is ready to begin auctioning advertising airtime on 2,300 participating U.S. radio stations. The venture –which puts eBay into competition with Google– includes both conventional terrestrial radio and Internet radio advertising. Stations in all of the 300 top-ranked radio markets are covered. Advertising inventory includes primetime spots with 90 percent in morning drive, midday or evening commute hours from Monday through Friday.

How (if at all) will this impact companies like ours that barter our services for radio station commercials? When you finish the quiz, close your Blue Book and raise your hand.

Seth’s Organic Path to Google Happiness

Seth Godin on the “organic success” path to a high Google rank:

“If you want to be on the front page of matches for “White Plains Lawyer”, then the best choice is to build a series of pages (on your site, on social sites, etc.) that give people really useful information. Once you’ve done everything you can… once you’ve built a web of information and once you’ve given the ability to do this to your best clients and your partners and colleagues, then by all means apply the best SEO (search engine optimization) thinking in the world to your efforts.”